Tippy Martinez ponders future from TSU

Mention the name Tippy Martinez to a Red Sox fan and the image that comes to mind is a left-handed relief pitcher for the Orioles who used to make Yaz and Fred Lynn look bad back in the late 1970s and into the 80’s.

Ask a baseball purist of the pre-Rotisserie League era about Martinez, and he’ll tell you the southpaw was one of the American League’s premier relievers around the turn of the last decade, a “just-gimme-the-ball-type” who amassed a 55-41 won-loss record and 115 saves in a 13-year career, mostly with Baltimore. If the purist is real sharp, he’ll know Martinez was 9-3 with 21 saves in 1983, earning a World Series win over the Phillies to help lead the O’s to the title.

What even the sharpest trivia nut probably doesn’t know, however, is whatever happened to Tippy Martinez? Where is he now?

Unless you’ve been following the NCAA Northeast Regional at the University of Maine, you probably wouldn’t know that Martinez, approaching his 41st birthday, is in his first year as an assistant coach with Towson (Md.) State University. He wears No. 20.

“I’m enjoying it and learning a lot,” said Martinez, shortly after TSU shut out Princeton 5-0 Friday to advance to Saturday’s third round.

That Martinez landed at a relatively obscure institution like Towson State was no accident. Aside from the fact he still lives in the Baltimore area, his son, Jacen, is a junior second baseman with the Tigers who transferred to TSU this year after attending Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville, Fla.

“He (Tippy) has been with me as long as my second baseman has been with me,” joked fourth-year TSU head coach Mike Gottlieb. “They came as a package deal.”

While the younger Martinez has brought a .304 batting average, speed on the bases, and a sure glove to the Tigers, the elder Martinez has contributed the experience of 13 seasons at the highest level of the game.

“What he does is communicate very well with the kids,” said Gottlieb. “He gets along with people very well. And I don’t think it goes over our kids’ heads the guy was the premier lefty relief pitcher in the American League for about 10 years. He can identify a lot of things from his experience and they’ll listen to him.”

Martinez took the TSU job with the idea of testing the college coaching waters. He is still not sure he wants to make a firm commitment to the profession. A native of Colorado, he’s also keeping a close eye on Denver’s efforts to land a Major League expansion franchise. If the Mile High City succeeds in that effort, Martinez said he will pack up and move back to the land of his youth where he will try to land a job in the public relations department.

If Denver doesn’t land a franchise, Martinez said college coaching would be an attractive alternative to him.

“I think so. I like the hurrah, hurrah aspect of it. I’ve had the opposite problem at the other (professional) level,” he said.

Not surprisingly, Martinez has been working almost exclusively with Towson’s pitching staff.

“It’s what I know best,” Martinez said.

If the eight-hit, complete-game shutout tossed by Tiger junior righty Rob Lynch Friday against Princeton was any indication, Martinez is making his presence felt.

“He’s helped us a lot with things like pitch selection and thinking about the game and about what we should be doing,” said Lynch.

Martinez, who retired from the Orioles following the 1986 season, still follows the organization closely. He said he was surprised by the firing of Frank Robinson as manager Thursday.

“I thought it was a big surprise. To be honest, I thought they might take a little more time than that. They must have figured they were in the cellar and they needed a change to get the oars going,” Martinez said.

Although he appears to be in excellent physical shape and fondly remembers his days as a member of an Orioles pitching staff that included Cy Young winner Jim Palmer, Martinez said he entertains no notions of attempting a comeback like his former teammate did this past spring training.

“Throwing batting practice, the way these kids hit the ball off me, I know I definitely gave it up at the right time,” said Tippy Martinez, looking very much at home in the uniform of a college baseball coach.